Faked Sunlight
by The Legend of Derpy
Summary: The petals encasing her sanity slowly died, and the sunlight no longer reached her leaves, so the Rose found other ways to grow...


A rose born in the shadows cannot live to have its petals opened by light, yet the oldest Rose of all did her duty well. For a mare who wore the dark of night like a cloak, she quietly created an artificial light to bathe her and the dying petals that encased her sanity. It provided, if only a fleeting, sense of comfort for her soul. The night stained black was of no exception. There was business to be done if the Rose was to thrive. There was no struggle in her profession. A quick pick from the marketplace crowd, and she had her next subject.

It was hard to tell if the brilliantly crimson splats were of the puzzle pieces creating Rose's mane or the short lived remnants of a luminous white mare's final struggle. The body was no heavier than the last; the Rose had learned her playmates were remarkably easy to drag along after a period of time. Perhaps this was fueled by growing muscle, perhaps by adrenaline. It did not matter so long as the pony had passed under the velvet curtain of death. There was not a long distance to drag the body in any event, as Rose was reminded when she carefully pushed open her back gate. A blazing moon glared down onto the weed strangled lawn, which glowed with Luna's power. Rose's beady eyes peered through the darkness; the body's eyes that she carried indifferent to its fate. Slung across Rose's back, it almost stared back at the moon, daring it to take a course of action, to do something, anything. With a simple slide of her back, the body found itself tumbling softy onto the grass. The blades of turf moaned under the sudden weight, crushed to death by a once living packet of blood. A mane of softly woven purple spilled out from underneath the mare's body, a horn nestling softly between the panicked strands of hair.

A soft smile lunged from the darkness in the form of rustling leaves. Rose had left the precious body for a neighboring hedge of holly, which sang a song of solitude as she picked past its sharp thorns with her hoof. Pain did not matter as long as she had her instrument at hand. Extending her arm out of the bush revealed a collection of bleeding cuts and a menacing saw gripped in her cream hoof. The silver blade was tarnished by age and blood alike, the colors marrying into a sort of uncomfortable orange rust.

A few gentle steps, a few quick slashes in the velvet blackness to calibrate her swing. She had done this many a time before, her experiences making each operation swift, "painless". The mare who splashed a sea of white around her hooves specialized in dress making, and Rose specialized in gardening. Her profession, calling for speed, enabled the mare to once be able to make a dress in thirty minutes, yet it only took Rose a mere thirty seconds with her job. She made a game of her job. She counted Father Time's god given seconds with ferocity, zest.

_One second, two seconds, four._

A saw applied to the horn's base, just a little above the eye socket. The body's glazed eyes stared upward at the glimmering blade with a faked awe.

_Five seconds, six seconds, jumping to ten._

Slowly, the saw dug into fresh skin, letting a cocktail of still warm blood flow slowly into thirsty grass. She would have to clean it later; no traces could and should have been found.

_Eleven seconds, twelve seconds, thirteen, fourteen._

The rust of the saw disappeared into black matter as the saw slowly made its hellish decent, sinking deeper into the bloody abyss. Cracks of magic tickle her fur as they danced erratically, disappearing in blue bits of smoke. It didn't faze Rose. She had seen it all before; this repeated removal of the horn.

_Fifteen? Sixteen? Perhaps twenty. Time goes oh so quickly._

Wiggling like a worm in fresh earth, the curved horn moaned. Blood, magic and long dried tears aided Rose in her quest; hooves planted firmly on the head's base, she tugged ever so slightly.

_Twenty one! Twenty two! Three, four, five, six! Seven? Eight? A nine, and a thirty? Time flies when you're having fun..._

Skin. The last of a dying bloodstream. Loose eyes, an exposed skeleton that sung of a silver light.

_A white horn._

Never mind the body. It would soon be dealt with. Rose fancied herself dedicated to Mother Nature when it came to these intricate procedures; all the parts would be used. A flower wasted no water, and Rose wasted no body. The horn was the object of interest at the moment, the fruit of her labors. It was currently a matter of shovels and pots.

Flower pots. Rose owned many of different sizes and colors, perhaps each for every horn she collected. They collected in packs and huddled within the hushed corners of the garden, awaiting their turn. Upon a quick scan of her current selection, she found herself oddly attracted to a spotless, oval pot and plucked it greedily from the pile. The other containers looked on in silent pain, awaiting her next kill. The horn, laid where the body's now empty eye sockets stared at it pointlessly, called out into the night with its dazzling white gleam. Flies had already started to collect on the fresh skin that was still attached to the horn, and she shooed them to the unicorn's body. She was not willing to give up her prize. Rose picked the horn up with her teeth and strode to the singular pot. Plunging it into the deep earth the container held onto with its interior, she tasted the familiar tang that came with every horn. Dirt, fear, electricity. It added up to a delicious dish in her mind, a sunless Rose's only water, filling her up with pride and letting yet another flower petal fall from her remaining sanity. Another successful kill, one to add to her mental list. Her pride, her joy, her _killings. _She prefered to call it "gardening".

She turned her head to other pots scattered in her garden. Unlike the empty ones, these pots held her trophies deep underneath their muffling soil. A blue pot, mixed with the design of a blue zing. Ah, one of the final resting places of quite a fancy Canterot pony who had visited Ponyville on the wrong day. Quite a fancy fellow he was, quite a Fancy fellow indeed. Rose particularly remembered the stallion's distinctive clothing: an expensive tuxedo graced his body and suited his drenched blood well. A rather dumpy orange pot with bits of speckled red - or was it sprayed blood? - sat on a patch of dying weeds sadly. Another memorable kill, for it was the easiest. Poor lad, too dumb for his own good. A cutie mark of a snail, yet this murder went quite the opposite of at a snail's pace. His last words were for a mare by the name of _Trixie..._

An electric blue pot, decorated with attacks of black stripes. The final stadium of a passing-by DJ.

Red and white stripes swirled like smoke on two identical pots, which sat next to one another. "All sales are final", Rose whispered to the darkness. The sweet smell of cider wafted from the creases of her memories, and disappeared into the stars.

A cool blue wave washed over a pot that clung to her corner fence like a shadow. Rose felt her teeth over with her tongue. Ah, the body had served her teeth and garden well.

She didn't know when the first crack of daylight sniped the first leaf, but the more important event is that it did, leaving a laser beam trail pointed at the body. It was no time to reminisce in fine memories. She eyed a fresh patch of dirt and groped for her shovel.

There was work to do.

xXxXxXx

The sun threatened Rose with malicious fingers as she stood in the Ponyville marketplace. An oak stand sitting in front of her supported a sea of little flowers, desperately anchoring them to soil to prevent the naughty wind from blowing them away. A purpled maned unicorn had been cautiously eyeing her display in the market for a while now, perhaps choosing the right flowers for her library. Twilight Sparkle, was that her name? She was quite the talkative one, Rose could give her that. She found herself yearning for her garden once more, the silence, the god worthy power over other's lives...

"...and so I need a few flowers to test out the new theory in my book, "Soil for Unicorns: One Hundred Fifty Ways to Plant With Your Horn"...picked it up from my friend Applejack, isn't that so great? And while I'm here, since you're a gardener and all, can you please tell me how you grow these flowers so beautifully?" Twilight gazed with gleeful eyes. The eyes of a child, really. Innocent, Trusting. Rose admired those traits in a unicorn.

Rose cleared her throat. "Ah, well, it's a family secret. I will tell you, however, that I use quite an excellent _fertilizer_..."

"Fertilizer? Got it! Thank you so much! I'll take the mums, by the way." She spat out twenty bits into Rose's hoof and was about to trot away when Rose yelled after her: a moment spurred by grotesque inspiration.

"Twilight, do you want to be a great gardener?"

The purple unicorn turned around, stars jumping in her eyes. A quick nod of her head sealed her fate in an airtight bag.

"Why don't you help me with my garden tomorrow night...?"

AN: The results of listening to "Fear Garden" can be devastating. Remember, only you can prevent grimdark fics. Sorry for the big paragraph blocks. I tried to spilt them up as best as I could.


End file.
